Legerdemain of Rabbits Inc
by Maeahru
Summary: Odds and ends, little rabbit trails of the mind. One shot stories, histories and essays concerning the oddities you never knew you wanted to know until you read them. Odd laws? Unusual foods? Traditions long forgotten but still kept? Every culture is peculiar to those who live outside it, in that regard the Wizarding World is the most normal culture of them all.


A/N: Harry Potter is J.K Rowling's domain. This includes his (her) world... but since so much of it is left open to the imagination, I thought I would investigate it! Non-profitably of course.

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Pumpkin Juice.

I was surprised to learn how little information there was in the Ilvermorny library concerning my topic of choice. After a thorough search of the catalogues I had come up with four children's books that mentioned it in passing, two fables about pumpkins and exactly one line in a history book. There was also a slew of recipes in various potion and apothecary books that used various parts of the pumpkin.

That one line had sparked my interest, though, and when we were told to write a 10 page paper on the interaction of culture and commerce I had asked to write on Pumpkin Juice.

Three days later I wished I had picked something easy, like Messenger Birds. I giggled for a second as I thought up a name for the subject, _**Ravens, Owls, Storks and Boobies**_. My mind digressed quickly as I tried to think of the more common Asian messenger birds and failed to come up with the names, ' _Petrel and Boobies'_ , I giggled, and yes, I fully recognized that I was an idiot (and yes, witches are fully as capable of being as immature as wizards), ' _are used the most as coastal and transoceanic messenger birds_. _Ravens are mostly popular here, along with parts of northern Europe while Owls were most common in the wooded countries of Europe. Storks are common in parts of Africa and the Middle East..._ '

My parents had tried to take me to various countries to learn about magical culture after they learned I was a Witch. One of those trips we had visited a Kabbalistic enclave in the north of Israel along with a Druze village in Syria. That was one reasons I had decided to only take the very basics of Arithmancy. The convoluted system of numbers, maths, astronomy, and advanced Arithmancy would forever be far beyond my thinking. I think my Dad had fallen in love with the Kabbalah magicians. Then again, he taught Newtonian maths… Calculus, binomial whatsit's, etc.

Mother and I had preferred to visit the waterfalls in the area and watch the stork migration.

In turn, Mother had fallen in love with the horticultural practices of the Druze village we visited. We had all been a little intrigued by the astrology, Dad because of how it supposedly tied in with his maths and astronomy, me, because a three day visit had garnered more information than my introduction to divination had provided, and mom because of her love of all things related to nature and mother earth-I think mostly it was the fact that she never could figure out which was astronomy and which astrology though.

Anyways… ' _Great, I just wrote more about a subject I don't have to turn in than the paper due on Thursday!'_ Even as I tried to turn my mind back to the subject at hand, my mind played one more trick on me, ' _Curious that Pigeons aren't considered one of the major messenger species in the Maj world.'_

I finally returned my attention to the single relevant line I had copied from the history book, "Catalesqua, grandson of Tenskwatawa, won his court hearing for the preservation of a small Shawnee magical community known as Knobstone in south-central Indiana along with a tract of farming land nearby. _Knobstone's main export became Pumpkin Juice and within two decades had become the richest magical community in the midwest._ A second hearing took place as Anderson Tuddles, of the famous Tuddle Apples of Indiana, attempted to follow the precedent created by the Mundane government's migration of the Shawnee tribe to Oklahoma. Catalesqua was once again able to win his hearing but this was only one case among hundreds that contested Local Magi with the quickly expanding Wizard community of the East Coast and European migrations."

Of course I had latched onto my mother's heritage immediately and wanted to write about my Shawnee ancestors. I couldn't, you know, take the five minutes to consider what would be a good project… like Messenger Birds. They had a lot of commercial value and the use of different birds in different regions was surely culturally relevant!

For instance, hopefully Evra Moor (so I was 11 when I named her and thought it was hilarious… I still love her) was bringing me something useful from Knobstone even as I sat in the library. Still, I wasn't simply lounging myself. There was a reason I was in advanced Histories, Cultures and Geography and hoping to apprentice under a master in two years when I finally graduate.

I had grown up in a mundane household, mother only had a vague understanding of her own cultural heritage but had always enjoyed reading the fables and histories of native peoples from around the world to me. Still, she had always thought them to truly be fables.

My first real encounter with the magical world, as opposed to magical accidents, was where I decided to start my paper.

I had arrived at Ilvormorny and, contrary to my usual desire to sleep in, awoke bright and early on my first full day at a magical school, gone down to breakfast only to be disgusted with the idea that my only drink options were milk, water and pumpkin juice for breakfast. I was already a bit weird in that my favorite drink was a mixture of carrot and orange juice so I tentatively tried the pumpkin juice.

It was as bad as it sounded.

Given that I never drank milk and wasn't really a big fan of water, I would occasionally try pumpkin juice as everyone else at the table seemed to enjoy it.

Five years later and pumpkin juice had become my drink of choice, I had returned home for my normal summer break and had literally craved pumpkin juice after two days without it. I also started to get cramps and a bit of a headache (no, it wasn't because of _that_ ).

Carrot juice helped a little but I still wanted my pumpkin juice.

So…

 **Rachel Adams, Pukwudgie**

 **Culture and Commerce, 6th Year History Elective**

 **The wealth of a nation depends on two factors, its natural resources and how her inhabitants use those resources. The greatest nations in the history of the world grew out of the lands that provided abundant foodstuffs, such as along the river systems of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China. Today, one of the greatest commercial empires in the North American magical community is the Tucumseh Pumpkin Company. As of 2,006, its commercial value is estimated at 143 million galleons.**

 **In a recent survey conducted by Galleons Inc. an overwhelming majority of 89% of Magi preferred pumpkin juice over any other beverage, including coffee, tea, water, various other juices and fizzy drinks. The only analogues situation this author can think of is the widespread popularity of the tomato throughout the Americas and Europe upon its introduction to the culinary world.**

 _Gah, now where'd I put that bibliography information?_ _Hmm, this is interesting._

Note to self: Appendix 1) It is interesting to note the number is actually even higher in the majority of North America but the overall median is lowered due to coastal communities.

I'd had a thought that pumpkin juice acted similarly to Coffee, except for magi. I know both mum and dad always had similar withdrawals to mine when they decide to do away with caffeine 'forever'. My counter-theory was that the production of 'magic' in a witch or wizard created an oddity or imbalance of nutrients and pumpkin juice was the easiest way the body knew to fix that imbalance, similar to how athletes needed water and sometimes craved salt or some people needed calcium or a pregnant woman needed whatever she could imagine… right now!

A third theory was that the Maj community didn't really have monopoly laws and thus pumpkin juice was the default drink of choice. I didn't really believe that one though as mundane stores were everywhere. Also, my understanding was that the reason Anderson Tuddle had tried to push the Shawnee of Knobstone into exile, along with the rest of their tribe, was to create his own Apple Juice monopoly. I had checked and the Tuddle company was still around and even produced apple juice, but they were barely able to sustain their own family and orchards with their profits. The fact that the mundane stores did _not_ carry pumpkin juice was likely one reason Catalesqua's company had prospered so well. Even if Tuddle's company had gotten their monopoly, I expect they would still be quite poor.

Now that I thought about it, a general survey could support either of the first two theories and wouldn't disprove the third. With so little information available to me and Evra Moor still not here with whatever information Knobstone was willing to part with for a research paper, I was still planning to do my own survey to see if mundane-raised magi had gone through a similar experience to my own as compared to magi-raised. Optimally, I should do a survey on magi-raised no-maj but that would be impossible to accomplish by Thursday.

I also had to create an actual thesis statement, I wasn't trying to prove that the Tucumseh Pumpkin Company was rich-which seemed to be my current thesis statement from what I had already written. Obviously I was supposed to create the thesis statement before doing all my writing and research but that was always the hardest part of a paper to write, to do so without any information always seemed impossible to me.

 _Well, I'm tired of sitting here reading the same fables and children's stories over and over again. Let's try for that survey._

I quickly wrote down my questions and created a nice table in my notepad. I would start with the teachers if I could and then work my way through the houses, perhaps 6th years first (as I knew most of them) and then 1st and 2nd years to see if there was a major difference. I wanted to get out of the library partly because I wanted a break from homework. If I interviewed every year here I wouldn't have anything left of my weekend!

 _Hmm, I should see if mundane-raised magi have introduced pumpkin juice to their parents or siblings and ask if they enjoy it to the same extent the wizarding world seems to._

I quickly drew another line down my notepad to add a column. I noted that after I interviewed a few teachers I should re-create my table so it wasn't quite so haphazard.

It took a lot longer than I hoped to both gather the information and then collate it into something actually useful. I suppose I shouldn't complain as I was working towards graduating in a little over a year and a half-difficult work was to be expected.

I was distracted for the rest of the weekend as some of my friends and acquaintances had incredibly interesting stories about their home life and cultural backgrounds… then Charms had a test on Monday I needed to prepare for. Tuesday was completely occupied as I needed to learn an Oceanic song or poetry charm for my Magics of the World elective. Thankfully it didn't require Arithmancy but wandless magic was still barely within my grasp while singing most certainly never would be!

By the time Wednesday rolled around, I started to panic. I had a total of a week to research and write this paper (which really was too short given the lack of information in the Library) and had barely started on the project. Now it was due tomorrow.

At 20:55 I was firmly warned that the library was closing. Mrs. Mandeli gave a not-so-subtle glance at my papers strewn across two separate tables before returning to her desk to straighten up a bit.

* * *

I jerked awake as I heard footsteps scurry across the common room.

"Rachel? Don't tell me you were up all night on that project." One of my roommates gently poked me in the arm.

I rubbed my head where a headache was forming and wished fervently that coffee would miraculously replace the pumpkin juice at breakfast.

"Hmm?" I managed to articulate before wiping my eyes. "Um, I'm going to the bathroom to clean up before breakfast. Would you mind going over this to make sure it's not missing complete paragraphs or something?" I handed her my papers before I stumbled towards the sink.

 **Rachel Adams, Pukwudgie**

 **Culture and Commerce, 6th Year History Elective**

 **The Great Pumpkin**

 **From the moment the Old and New World's collided, no-Maj conflicts exploded between the nations and tribes living in the 'New World' and those migrating to her. The conflict between Wizards and Wise Ones, was no less grave. Conflict was not new to anyone. In Europe, nation fought against nation while in the Americas tribe fought against tribe. Neither side was innocent and both strove to prove their superiority. The European nations and wizards eventually became prevalent in both the old and the new worlds, but, as in all things, it was not as one-sided as it may first appear.**

 **The majority of vegetation is over 90% water. The creation of liquid beverages from fruits, vegetables and grains has been known for millennia. However, it is rare that such beverages include oil, a liquid that is known to not mix with water and often has a strong and distinct taste. However, there is one plant that mixes the juices from the pulp as well as the oil from its seeds to create the most popular drink in the western world since the mid-1800's: The Pumpkin. This single plant, at the time virtually unknown outside of a few First Nation tribes within the New World, has diminished several common magi-related ailments to practical non-extinction as well as created an economic powerhouse in the culinary world.**

 **It was one of my ancestors, a Shawnee by the name of Catalesqua, who first marketed Pumpkin Juice to the world and created an economic empire that has expanded out of their small nation to encompass the entirety of the Americas, Europe as well as large parts of Africa and Asia. This was not by chance or happy accident.**

 **Shawnee tradition states that long ago, their Wise Ones suffered from...**

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A/N: If something intrigues me about the world Harry Potter lived in, I decided I would write it down if I had time. I love almost everything to do with culture and anthropology, history and geography. If you find a topic I wrote about to be interesting or fun, let me know. Conversely, if you have a topic you think would be interesting, let me know and I might just write about it in this hodgepodge of hocus pocus.


End file.
